


Goodnight, Lara

by vendettadays



Series: First Aid [2]
Category: Tomb Raider & Related Fandoms, Tomb Raider (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 10:15:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2021220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vendettadays/pseuds/vendettadays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Sam wanted to do was to fix Lara, but she could not. Sam could not fix her in the way that she needed, so she coped with what she had. (Post Tomb Raider 2013)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goodnight, Lara

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the new 'Rise of the Tomb Raider' trailer.

Sam grabbed the first aid kit from the kitchen cupboard that she kept it in. She gripped the black bag and closed the cupboard door gently. Everything she did these days was done gently. She walked without a sound into the living room, because any noise would shatter the illusion that everything was normal. Everything was far from normal, but Sam was not about to contradict it.

All she had to do was pretend, because normal did not include waking up at four in the morning to let her best friend into her flat. Normal did not include the feeling of her heart breaking anew each time she saw Lara with new cuts and wounds for her to try and fix. All she wanted was to fix the only thing that she knew she could not. So she coped with what she could do: cleaning the dried blood that stained Lara’s skin, disinfecting the cuts before they festered, and stitching the wounds without finesse.

Sam settled onto the sofa and pulled out what she needed from the kit. She placed each item onto the coffee table quietly and lined them up: surgical scissors, forceps, and sutures. It was standard equipment to her just like the cameras that she used to carry around with her, but instead of lenses and memory cards it was rubber gloves and a bottle of antiseptic. She was a lot better at textiles now.

‘Lara, sweetie?’

Sam turned her body to face her silent companion sat next to her. Lara’s left foot stilled and, without the constant tapping to fill Sam’s dark living room lit only by a table lamp, the silence between them grew until it seeped into every corner. This was what they had become. Lara, who communicated with nervous gestures in public, but thrived on her natural instincts in the wilderness. And Sam? Sam was reduced to reading non-verbal signs like a fortune-teller reading tea leaves. She got it right most days and avoided thinking about the days she got it wrong.

She reached up and drew back the grey hood that covered Lara’s head. Lara did not look up, eyes downcast and focused on something that was not there. She did not resist Sam. So it was a “right” day. Sam pulled at the zip and dragged it all the way down. She slipped her fingers under the hoody on Lara’s shoulders; her thumbs grazed against Lara’s collarbones as she pushed the material down her arms. A shuddering breath trembled beneath Sam’s hands when she brushed against an open cut on Lara’s forearm.

‘Sorry,’ murmured Sam. She stretched the material and avoided touching the cut as much as possible.

Once it was off, Sam placed the dirty hoody next to her. She would throw it into the bin later, maybe even burn it. She took Lara’s left hand into hers and turned it over with her palm facing up, so she could look at Lara’s forearm. There was more dried blood than skin and Sam’s stomach clenched at the sight of the three-inch cut that desperately needed stitches.

Sam cleaned the cut and hoped it was clean enough that it wouldn’t get infected. She held the forceps with the suture in her hand and started to stitch the cut back together. She bit her lips and concentrated on keeping her hands still, because this was Lara. Lara who already had so many other scars on her body that she did not need another caused by Sam’s shaky hands. This was the fifth time, but her hands still shook in a way a filmmaker’s should not. When it was done, Sam cut the thread and stripped the rubber gloves off.

‘It’s finished.’

Sam took Lara’s hand and held onto it tightly. Lara’s hand and fingers were covered with coarse calluses, half-healed cuts, and bruises that had gone from purple to yellow and then back to purple. Sam clenched her teeth together and swallowed down the tears, because it did not how she felt anymore. This wasn’t about pub fights or smashed pint glasses and it never would be about those things anymore.

Lara wasn’t going to stop.

There was nothing that Sam could say or do to get Lara to stay.

So she did the only thing she knew how to do.

She signed up for first-aid classes, because it was the only thing that kept Lara coming back to her. Even if it was every few months in the middle of the night when Lara got back from whatever death-defying excursion she was on, but it was better than nothing.

‘Do you want to crash on my sofa tonight?’ Sam let go of Lara’s hand and packed everything away.

Lara nodded and pulled the tartan-patterned blanket off the top of the sofa and onto her body.

‘Let me know if you need anything,’ said Sam, as she got up from the sofa. She paused on her way out of her living room and hoped that Lara would, at least, look at her, but she didn’t. ‘Goodnight, Lara.’

 


End file.
